Revealing the Physician's Task Conceptualization in Melanoma Treatment: Qualitative User Experience Study

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Clinical Workflow Analysis

Background:

• Effective melanoma treatment requires physicians to access relevant information seamlessly within their workflow.
• Current information systems (ISs) often hinder physicians' focus by demanding extensive interaction and data compilation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify physician work steps, knowledge sources, and key information during tumor board registration.
• To reveal the cognitive workflow and task conceptualization of physicians interacting with clinical IS.
• To pinpoint inefficiencies in current clinical IS to inform the design of supportive software solutions.

Main Methods:

• Concurrent think-aloud method with 10 dermatologists.
• Analysis of voice and screen recordings, transcribed and annotated for work steps, information focus, and programs used.
• Workflow mapping via sequence diagrams and quantitative analysis of annotation data.

Main Results:

• Physicians spend an average of 13 minutes per workflow, involving 25 program switches and 16 interactions to access data.
• 55% of workflow time is consumed by system interactions and data compilation due to data fragmentation and system design.
• Identified 7 key pain points including time-intensive logins, data fragmentation, and interface limitations, leading to workarounds like manual data compilation.

Conclusions:

• Current clinical IS present significant challenges, forcing physicians into workarounds due to distributed data and system architecture.
• Understanding physicians' cognitive workflow and task conceptualization is crucial for developing effective software.
• Designing integrated software solutions that organize and present data effectively at the point of care is essential for improving clinical workflows.